Nuns hit the road in New Zealand in Holy Days, to March 30

B.C. filmmaker Nat Boltt brings scenic, gentle comedy to the Park big screen

Holy Days screens at the Park Theatre on March 27 (with director Nat Boltt in attendance), 28, and 30

THE NEW NUN road movie Holy Days is full of otherworldly settings on the far side of the globe: shot on New Zealand’s wild South Island, it features green, Hobbit-worthy landscapes with herds of fluffy sheep, cliff-enveloped beaches, and towering postcard mountains.

Remarkably, though, you can trace the heart of the project back here to Canada’s West Coast, with Deep Cove–based filmmaker Nat Boltt bringing New Zealand author Joy Cowley’s book of the same name to life onscreen.

Aside from stunning cinematography, the gentle comedy, which opens this weekend at the Park Theatre, features a knockout international cast. Playing the three central, aging nuns are My Brilliant Career and Husbands and Wives star Judy Davis; Blackadder Brit comedy veteran Miriam Margolyes; and Jacki Weaver, almost unrecognizable from her roles in Animal Kingdom and Silver Linings Playbook.

It’s the 1970s, and the three women run a decrepit convent that is long past its years as the “centre of town” and is now the target of a land developer. All three pack into a retro-red station wagon to travel the long route to the lawyer who holds the deeds to the convent. They bring along Brian (a beautifully unaffected Elijah Tamati), a young Māori boy who has lost his mother and dreams of visiting her maunga, the towering, snow-capped mountain Aoraki—and maybe finding heaven.

To its credit, Holy Days acknowledges the complicated history of the church in New Zealand, just as it honours the spirituality of Brian’s people. At the same time, it’s not afraid to get silly: ceilings collapse into soup bowls, karate chops scare off cow herds, and dentures go missing.

The result is an offbeat, family-friendly road movie that lightly explores love and loss—think Hunt for the Wilderpeople with a dollop of Sister Act—made all the more unlikely, of course, by its B.C. connection.

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Janet Smith

Janet Smith is founding partner and editorial director of Stir. She is an award-winning arts journalist who has spent more than two decades immersed in Vancouver’s dance, screen, design, theatre, music, opera, and gallery scenes. She sits on the Vancouver Film Critics’ Circle.

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